Pyrotechnic Cities: Architecture, Fire-Safety and Standardisation

This book explores the relationship between architecture, government and fire. It posits that, through the question of fire-safety standardisation, building design comes to be both a problem for, and a tool of, government. Through a close study of fire-safety standards it demonstrates the shaping effect that architecture and the city have on the way we think about governing.

Opening with an investigation into the Grenfell Tower fire and the political actors who sought to enrol it in programm...